Edge.

Am I almost there or nowhere near?
The journey is as I perceive it.
Am I walking the plank above a dark abyss of unquestionable depth or am I giddily preparing a cannon-ball jump into a pool of refreshing water?
The choice is mine.
Am I irreparably broken or have I broken open?
Am I hurting or am I healing?
Have I made the same mistake again or am I finally aware of the pattern?
Am I alone and lonely or am I newly free of unhealthy attachments?
Friends have taught me recently that delusion is subjective. Because reality is how we perceive it and the meaning we give it is our choice.
Can faith really be so simple?
Can we just choose to believe and suddenly be convinced?
I’ve grown comfortable in the shadows, but the warmth of the light beckons to me.
Step by step, I approach the edge.
My legs shake as I bend to jump.
What awaits me where I land?
Will I survive the fall?
What comes next?
Choose.

Shed.

Some days, I wish I was a snake so I could shed the past all at once, leave it behind me, a whisper of my previous self.
Or even as a wolf sheds its winter coat, I envy the cool relief as the air warms in the spring.
I imagine the lightness a deer must feel when he’s finally able to release a year’s weight of antlers from his temples. New ones will grow over the next year, but the reprieve from carrying that mass must be blissful.

Lately, I have wished that in just one tear, I could shed a relationship. That in just one drop of blood, I could shed the pain. That in one dead skin cell, I could shed the memory of a touch that once hurt.

There is a vulnerability though to shedding something that has long been one’s protective layer, an armor of sorts. Snakes tend to shed their skin in private, hiding in a burrow or den. Perhaps humans are that way too. Letting go of the past means replacing it with something unknown, yet to come and still yet to understand.

When animals shed, the skin, the antlers, the fur – it grows back eventually. But is it the same as it was before? Are we the same, even when we choose to move on? Or do we leave a past self behind, like a snakeskin, a patch of winter fur, a set of antlers?

Maybe I’ll take comfort in the fact that as far as I move forward, my memories are not shed completely. I will not forget everything. I wouldn’t want to. A glimpse of the old carries on within the new, a foundational pattern, like the grain of wood in a tree. Perhaps our past selves walk on behind us, cheering on our growth or whispering reminders of lessons learned. That’s comforting, the thought of all of our selves walking the same path, just at different paces.

And simultaneously, shedding what no longer fits, that which we’ve outgrown is how we move forward. It’s quite literally evolution to shed the old and make way for the new.

The seasons are changing and so am I.
It’s finally time to set down the past.
Shed.
Evolve.